GPU Driver updates coming to several Google and Samsung phones

Back in December during the Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm announced its updateable GPU drivers for its Snapdragon 765 and 865 platforms. Today, Google introduced its new Android GPU Inspector tool which is a new graphics profiling tool for smartphone GPUs that allows developers to tweak and better optimize their games’ performance and push those new gains to consumers straight through OTA updates on the Play Store.

The new tool supports both Adreno and Mali GPUs and will give developers the ability to push OTA driver updates to supported devices. The initial list of phones includes the Snapdragon-powered Pixel 4 duo as well as both the Exynos and Snapdragon variants of the Samsung Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy S10. Google is promising a larger pool of supported devices coming soon.

According to Qualcomm, the new optimizations can decrease GPU strain by as much as 40% while providing faster frame rates and improved battery life on supported devices. Google and Qualcomm are already collaborating with multiple game studios including Gameloft and Blizzard Entertainment with the first set of GPU driver updates expected to arrive later this year.